


I Think I Might Have Inhaled You

by ashintuku



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 23:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashintuku/pseuds/ashintuku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was not the summer Stiles Stilinski had planned for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Think I Might Have Inhaled You

It had been a long night.

Grossly long, actually. Like the kind of long that dragged and dragged and dragged, the minutes turning into hours and the hours turning into days; weeks; months. He felt like it wasn’t even the same day anymore – that he had woken up that morning, ready for video games and bro-bonding with Scott and maybe a bit of time with his father, who had been so busy since Matt’s murder that the sheriff and his son only really spoke words to each other at dinner. And by that time, they were usually so exhausted from their respective days that they only said one or two benign things to one another.

This was why Stiles was so thankful for the summer that was ahead of him. He could actually see his dad during the break. Maybe head over to the station to have lunch or something. If he was allowed in; the deputies who had not been a part of the Precinct Massacre might not like it if the sheriff’s delinquent son hung around. They’d probably think he’d screw around with evidence or something.

(Just for the record, Stiles never _would_ , okay, he wouldn’t. He had only shredded and ripped up and burned evidence from _one_ case, and he’d had a gun pointed at his head. That was super stressful, and he should not be judged by cops everywhere just because he was threatened into obliterating evidence to an open murder case. It was completely uncalled for.)

But he had woken up that morning, prepared to enjoy his summer vacation to the fullest, and now? Now it felt like weeks later, that innocent morning a long-faded dream, and Stiles can’t even recall what few words he and his dad had shared over breakfast before Mr Stilinski went off to be Sheriff Stilinski and Stiles’ phone started to ring as if possessed as soon as he turned it on.

(He had legitimately been concerned for a moment there. If werewolves and kanimas and hunters could all exist, what was stopping ghosts and witches and ghouls and all those creepy-crawlies he just really didn’t want to think about past Halloween?)

It had turned out to be a mass of texts, though, and not some kind of Peeves-in-the-flesh, so that was a relief. But the relief didn’t last when he saw what the texts were all telling him.

_stiles omg i gotta tell u sumthin where r u??_

_srsly stiles where r u man y arent u answering my txts??_ (Says Scott, who was totally notorious for ignoring panicked and important texts in favour of enjoying an Awkward Argent Family Dinner.)

_STILES THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT CALL ME PLZ._

Well, since he asked so nicely.

As soon as Stiles had hit the ‘call’ button on his phone, Scott answered, sounding rushed and panicked and kind of like the kanima was back and holding Mrs McCall up by her throat again. Or like Allison had just threatened to cut off his balls. Or both. Both were good.

“Where have you been, I’ve been trying to contact you for ages!”

“Dude, chill out, I was sleeping. I turned off my phone last night ‘cause I thought I wouldn’t need to go around repeating ‘constant vigilance’ to myself anymore. What’s wrong?”

“You gotta get over here, Isaac just told me something and you _really_ need to know about it. Quickly!”

“Alright, alright, don’t get your panties in a twist, Scott. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

They had hung up, Stiles feeling heavy and like his entire summer had been ruined, before leaving his house, locking it up and climbing into his Jeep to head over to Scott’s.

What he had learned from the two young werewolves (Isaac was still at Scott’s when Stiles got there. And that was kind of funny, ‘cause Stiles didn’t remember Isaac and Scott being all that close, yet they certainly _seemed_ close enough. Whatever) was that there was a new threat heading towards their sleepy little town that had become like a beacon of light to all supernatural creatures (which was fitting, because they were _Beacon Hills_ ; English majors would have a field day with that one), and that threat was another pack of werewolves.

But not just any pack, oh no, because it was too much to ask for your run-of-the-mill werewolf pack; this was a pack of _alphas_. And didn’t that just make Stiles want to shit himself in fear.

Yaay.

So with that terrifying nugget of information at hand, the three teenagers put their brains together to try to figure out what to do, Stiles lugging over Scott’s older-than-stink laptop towards him so that he could look up any cases of actual wolves creating an Alpha Pack (it deserved the capitals, okay) and Isaac telling Scott what Derek and Peter were planning to do about the approaching shitstorm.

(Stiles did not like the idea of Derek working with his psycho-zombie-uncle one bit, just for the record. But if Derek thought it was okay to take Peter’s information while still holding him away at arm’s length, then who was Stiles to deny him? Not a concerned friend, no siree – Stiles doubted the older man even _considered_ Stiles a friend. Despite them saving each other’s lives. All the time. No big deal, right? Casual life-saving, that was Stiles Stilinski’s motto! Ugh.)

So after hours upon hours of research, tentative plans, calls to the super-vet (as Stiles had taken to calling Deaton in his head, because really, there was only so much badass-osity a man could have before they basically became a superhero) to get his vague, Rafiki-like opinion, and careful plans to maybe include Derek into the thick of things this time around (Isaac told Scott and Stiles that Derek was still a little sore about the whole ‘being-left-out-of-the-super-plan-to-take-down-Gerard’ deal; but if it made the alpha feel any better, Stiles hadn’t known about it either! Solidarity in ignorance. Yeaah), Isaac announced that he was going to head back to the Den; Scott told Stiles that his mom was probably going to be home soon, and Stiles took that as his cue to head home.

What a way to start the summer.

Falling onto his bed as soon as he could reach it, Stiles buried his face into his sheets and ignored the faint twinge of a healing bruise on his cheek; the only reminder left around from his smack-down with a geriatric psychopath that still made him cringe in shame and inner-angst. His dad wasn’t home yet, the sheriff busy at the station doing sheriff-y things, so Stiles was left to his own devices. His own devices, he decided then and there, being to sleep until he felt like a person again.

Thus, turning onto his side to shimmy out of his jeans and tuck himself under his covers for a good, long hibernation, Stiles squawked when he saw he had a visitor creeping in the corner.

A visitor named Derek Hale.

“Oh my _God_ , what the hell, man! Could you give a guy some warning? Like, at all? A knock on the window, a noisy shift in movement so that I know I have an audience when I’m about to strip down to my skivvies? No? Maybe? Jeezus, what are you even doing here, shouldn’t you be watching over Isaac? Isn’t he staying over at your – can I even call it a place? Is that a thing that can logically be done? ‘Cause that abandoned station does not scream ‘home sweet home’, let me tell you.”

“Peter’s with him.”

“That does not comfort me in the slightest, considering your uncle is basically a zombie who also happens to be the sassiest thing since SGF.”

“SGF?” Derek tilted his head, confused by the reference. Stiles shook his head and flailed his arms a little to show that that wasn’t the point. At all.

“Derek do not be deliberately obtuse, it’s not cute. It’s not even sexy. It’s annoying, and reminds me way too much of Scott.” Derek narrowed his eyes at the comparison, baring his teeth at the exhausted teenager before composing himself, drawing his control back in. “I can’t believe you even trust Peter.”

“I don’t,” Derek said immediately, eyes locking onto Stiles, “but I know he won’t hurt Isaac. Should he hurt him, even if he is a werewolf, Chris Argent will take that as an excuse to hunt him down and kill him – again. Because Isaac’s never spilled blood and so he’s technically an ‘innocent’.” Here Derek gave a somewhat terrifying smile, sharp and small and showing his teeth in a way that Kodak would not appreciate. “Kate and Gerard aren’t the only Argents who know how to twist the Code to suit their needs.”

Stiles took a moment to chew on that information, rolling it around in his head and poking at it until he thought he fully understood the implications of the statement, before shuddering. “I am surrounded by _terrifying people_.” He then shook his head roughly, scrubbing his hands over his shorn hair and looking back at Derek with a serious expression. “Okay, so moving aside the fact that you left a minor in the care of a zombie-werewolf you don’t even _trust_ but are only leaving alone ‘cause you think he won’t do anything to endanger his life…why are you here?”

Here Derek fell quiet, which really wasn’t all that surprising. Mute intensity seemed to be Derek’s default setting or something these days. It made Stiles wonder what he had been like before the fire; if he had been more open, willing to laugh and smile and joke, or if he had always been reclusive and quiet – perhaps borderline shy. The idea of a shy Derek almost made Stiles laugh, but he smothered the urge quickly. It wouldn’t do to make the alpha think he was laughing at him; he had his delicate sensibilities and all that.

“Isaac told me you smelled strange.”

Stiles blinked, mouth hanging open for a moment.

“…Seriously? Isaac complained about a change in my body odour and so you thought you’d come and investigate for yourself?” Stiles rolled his eyes, flopping back onto his bed to show how severely unimpressed he was by the whole thing. “I was worried that people were dying or there was another creature out for our skins or that you’d need my researching skills to help you learn more about the Alpha Pack or whatever. But no – I _smell_.”

He heard Derek give a huff of exasperation – and he knew it was exasperation, he knew the differences between huffs thank you very much, he’d had a lot of practice with his dad over the years – before the werewolf moved closer, sitting on the computer chair and scooting forward until his knees were practically touching the side of the bed. Stiles knew; he watched him come closer with a wary eye.

“It’s got nothing to do with your body odour, idiot,” Derek grumbled, leaning forward so that his elbows rested against his knees, casual-as-you-please and looking as though he were some sculpture in leather. “It’s your _scent_.”

“My _scent_ ,” Stiles repeated, adjusting his head so that he faced Derek properly – kind of. He wasn’t sitting up unless it was important. “Isn’t that the _same thing_?”

“No,” Derek shook his head, his weird hazel-green-blue-whatever eyes focused on him completely, “your scent is your core – you’ll always smell like this. Your BO is a shallow, secondary scent that can be washed away.”

Okay, that actually made sense. It was also kind of really creepy. “You guys can smell something that…uh…personal, I guess the right word is?”

“Of course,” Derek shrugged, like this wasn’t mind-boggling news to the resident normal human in their ragtag group of werewolves and humans and immune-goddesses. “It’s how we can tell when people are afraid, or happy, or aroused, or…”

Derek trailed off, his gaze turning distant and contemplative, before he inhaled deeply. Stiles took a moment to realize that Derek was cataloguing a bunch of scents in his head just then, everything that Stiles was feeling open to the werewolf like a big scratch-and-sniff picture book with the size 24 Times New Roman font used in kids’ stories all the time, and he took a moment to be amazed by that fact. Because really, that was a lot of information to take from just _one_ heightened sense. It had to take ridiculous control not to look overwhelmed all the time.

“…Or?” Stiles prompted after a beat too long in regards to silence; they were bordering the edge of awkward, now.

“Or pain,” Derek finally said, voice soft, practically gentle. He sounded almost like Stiles vaguely remembered him sounding, when he had seen him around town while he clutched to his mother’s hand and babbled away at her, not a care in the world. He had only ever seen him a few times, always with his sister or his mother or his uncle, and he had only heard him twice; once when he had muttered an ‘excuse me’ as he and his mother walked around Stiles and _his_ mother in the supermarket, on the way to the meat section, and once when he spoke to his father in the police station, voice cracking from emotion or tears or ash stuck in his throat, Stiles would never be sure.

He also sounded  _concerned._

“Pain?” Stiles repeated, voice cracking awkwardly, and really, he thought he had gotten passed that ages ago. “Well, you and Isaac must be smelling things, ‘cause I am perfectly A-okay. No pain here, not even a muscle twinge. It’s surprising what a bit of rest and some long, hot showers will do for the body, you know? Well, no, you wouldn’t, you’ve got super healing, I doubt you’ve ever experienced a stitch in your side. That’s kind of unfair, you know. Seriously unfair. Screw you, buddy.”

“Stiles.”

Stiles winced, burying his face into his pillow and hoping that if he couldn’t see Derek, Derek couldn’t see him. The hand on the back of his neck told him no, that really wasn’t going to work, time to grow up now, Stiles.

He should’ve run away to Neverland when he had the chance. Knowing what he did now, the place probably existed.

“It’s not physical pain,” Derek said softly, mouth close to his ear; Stiles could tell, he could feel hot breath fan out across the edge of his ear, tickling the short hairs near his temple, and that made him squirm in funny ways. Hello, self-discovery – inopportune moment, try again later. “It’s mental – it’s anguish. Why are you in pain?”

“Are you really asking me that?” Stiles croaked into his pillow, shoving his face deeper into the fabric that smelled like detergent – sunshine and lemon, the bottle promised, but he could only really smell the strong scent of citrus. “Are you _seriously_ asking me that?”

He shoved himself up onto his elbows, then, turning to look at the alpha fully and narrowing his eyes at him in irritation. “Let me list some of the things that would cause me to be in _pain_ , shall I? My best friend was turned into a werewolf by a psychotic arsonist victim-slash-werewolf with a vendetta. My father is in danger all the time because he’s the goddamn _sheriff_ and so he has to go investigate crime scenes that won’t make sense to him ‘cause it’s all supernatural _bullshit_. The girl I have loved for the past ten years is in love with a _dick_ , who had recently been _killing people_ , and because I snapped at her she won’t even look at me whenever I see her! There’s also the fact that I kinda feel like I’m losing my best friend to werewolves, that psychotic werewolf who changed my best friend and whom I helped _kill_ has come back from the dead, my dad doesn’t even _trust_ me these days – and to top it all off I had the _shit_ kicked out of me by some geriatric sociopath with a fondness for knives, proving to everyone in the _fucking universe_ that I am _useless_! No, I see no reason for me to be in _anguish_ , I just can’t figure it out!”

He panted red in the face and suddenly really glad that his father was still out on duty – he didn’t think he’d be able to lie his way out of that outburst, even if he had weakly shimmied out of worse scenarios. Derek stared at him impassively, his hand still on the back of his neck, his eyes unreadable. Stiles squirmed, feeling awkward and uncomfortable and suddenly like he had just whined about something unimportant, when Derek pushed him onto his back, abandoning his post on the computer chair and crawling into his space.

(Stiles briefly wondered when his personal bubble became so small, and then contemplated the idea that maybe it had simply popped the day Derek slammed him against his bedroom door.)

“Can I help you?” Stiles squeaked, feeling highly uncomfortable and facing that moment of self-discovery all over again when forced to admit that Derek smelled really good – like leather and metal and woods – and that he was stupidly pretty, and ridiculously buff, and _Jesus Christ_ he was so attractive it was practically offensive.

“I think we should have been helping _you_ ,” Derek muttered, his nose pressed against Stiles’ neck, hands carefully pinning down his wrists to the mattress. “You can’t bottle this shit up, Stiles.”

“I would like to take this moment to tell you that the kettle called for you.”

“Shut up.” Was Stiles imaging things, or was that a tone of fondness? “I’m the alpha – I’m supposed to be able to handle stress.”

“And what, I’m the weak human so I’m not?”

“ _No_ ,” Derek growled, and holy shit those were lips on his pulse point, what was happening? But instead of freaking out, Stiles almost felt like he could melt into the sheets, relaxed and calm and almost content for once. “You’re a _kid_ – you shouldn’t have to deal with any of this. Yet you are. And you’re doing really well – but you’re just a kid, you can’t be expected to hold it all in forever.”

“Yeah, well,” Stiles muttered, closing his eyes and taking a moment just to enjoy the fact that he could relax, even if it was because of weird circumstances, “what else am I supposed to do?”

Derek didn’t reply to that, so Stiles took that as the non-answer it was: that he couldn’t do anything other than what he _was_ doing. And that was fine, really, he could handle it. He could. Even though he really, really didn’t want to. 

He sighed, lifting a hand to idly pet through Derek’s hair and hoping the werewolf wouldn’t rip his throat out with his teeth for the transgression, allowing the soothing, repetitive motion to lull him into a sense of peace that he knew wouldn’t last. There was the Alpha Pack to worry about, and the disappearance of Gerard Argent. There was his dad to constantly worry over, and Scott, and Isaac, and Lydia (Jackson included only because the two apparently came in a set), and Erica and Boyd (who were still missing) There was Peter to be suspicious about. There was even Derek to worry about, even if the older man didn’t want anyone worrying about him one bit.

He pushed it all away, the constant heat from Derek sinking into his front and the comfort of his pillow-top mattress soothing his back, his mind hazily focused on petting Derek like it was the only thing that mattered.

He fell asleep to the smell of leather, woods, and citrus. 

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, REYNE. 
> 
> You are super fantastic and beautiful and wonderful and all around perfection. Your editing is beautiful and your writing is improving by the day. Your passion for this television show and these characters is inspiring, and so I thought I'd write you this for your birthday. Because I adore you. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoy your presence in my life. ♥


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